Shannon Meyerkort, writer

Month: May 2018

My name is Shannon Meyerkort and I am a writer, currently researching and writing a novel set here in Perth just prior to WW1. The reason why I am contacting you, is that you may be related to one of the people who have inspired my story, and I am writing as a courtesy and also to try and make connections with the families of the people whose stories have motivated me to write.

Firstly, it’s important that I stress that the novel I am writing is fictional. It is not an autobiography although I aim for it to be historically accurate. However it is inspired by three people:

Doris Isabelle TURPIN (1873-1968) of Daglish, WA

John REGAN (1895-1915) of Jarrahdale, WA

Walter Bell BLAIR of Murwillumbah NSW/Maddington WA (1893-1915)

All three were students at the Claremont Training College around the period 1912-1914, which was the teacher training college of Perth at the time, and is now part of the University of WA.

I began researching Doris as she was the original owner of my house in Daglish. After making contact with her niece in 2014, I discovered that Doris (who had died a spinster at the age of 75) had a sweetheart who was a teacher, but he had died in WW1.

It was the question of who this man might be, although no one living could possibly know who he was, that led me to research fellow students at the College. Both John and Walter attended the College at the same time as Doris, and sadly, both men lost their lives in the early days of WW1. There is no way of knowing who Doris’s sweetheart really was, but as a writer I wanted to find the stories of men who could have been. Therefore, some aspects of both John and Walter’s stories (which I have been able to discover via sites such as Trove and ancestry.com) have informed the characters in my novel.

Neither Doris, nor John nor Walter ever married and had children, but they all had siblings and most likely have a large extended family still living here in Perth. I am trying to reach out to people who may be related, and this is why I have written this letter. With dozens and dozens of Turpins, Blairs and Regans listed in the white pages, it isn’t possible for me to contact everyone individually, and I am hoping this letter eventually reaches the right people, perhaps someone knows someone who knows someone.

I am not asking you for anything, but I just wanted to let you know about the story I am writing. It is obviously much larger than just Doris, Walter and John – as there were many thousands of men who lives were cut short by WW1 and many thousands of women back home, whose lives were irrevocably changed by the death of their sweethearts and husbands. I hope to do justice to their memories and am very happy to share the information I have discovered about them as a result of my research.

While my novel has been inspired by real-life people, it is ultimately fiction and so all my characters needed new names when I began to write.

A character’s name is so important, it is worn like an item of clothing that one cannot remove. It distinguishes you and discloses things about you, more than we realise. Choosing a name for my characters was an exercise in finding monikers which were historically accurate, and for some, a fun way to recognise family and friends.

My character Charles is loosely based on Walter Blair, a student who attended Claremont Training College at the same time as Doris and who sadly died in WW1. Although Walter died at the age of 21, there are a number of images of him that survive – his role in the College football and cricket teams meant there were plenty of team photos from his time at the College. This meant that I was able to use some of his physical characteristics when writing the character.

Walter needed a different name when he became a character in my book. Very little of Walter Blair’s life actually informed the character, and besides, Walter was the name I was using for my protagonist’s father. Charles was an easy decision as it was a common name of the time, and to choose his new surname I chose that of a friend whose first name was actually Blair, a moment of quick word association. This was how the character became Charles Morgan, a name that I felt was strong and somewhat refined, and could easily represent a man born into a family of well-bred lawyers at the turn of the twentieth century.

Today, while researching the second convoy of ships to leave Western Australia for the front, I discovered that there was a real-life Charles Morgan from Perth, who also was a Corporal, and who also served with the 11th Battalion, just the same as my fictional character. Real-life Charles Morgan was killed in action in France in July 1916. I also found Private Charles Morgan, a farmhand who served with the 10th Light Horse, the same Battalion as my character John.

I admit I am devastated, and disappointed with myself that I hadn’t thought to check sooner. It was a good name and will be difficult to think of my character by another, but out of respect for the real-life Charles Morgan’s who enlisted in WW1 from Perth, I now need to find a new one (or at least a new surname) for my character.

Immediately after my discovery about Charles, I had a moment of panic when I thought about my other main male character, John O’Meara. This character was loosely based on the real-life John Regan, and even though I kept the same first name, I chose another surname to represent his Irish heritage.

A quick search on the National Archives turned up dozens of John O’Meara’s who served in WW1 as well as the record of a John O’Meara who was a patient in a Queensland mental asylum. However none of them enlisted from West Australia, and so I am content to keep the name.

So now I am on the lookout for a new surname for my character – and I welcome any suggestions.